Trapped in Devil's Snare
by SchroedingersKneazle
Summary: Struggling with the reality of being a Death Eater, Draco Malfoy is desperately trying to fulfill the seemingly impossible task the Dark Lord has set him. One-shot.
The feeling of glory was gone. How could he have ever thought that he, a sixteen year old schoolboy, was able to defeat the second-greatest wizard alive? Albus Dumbledore might appear like a senile old fool, but he should have known that behind that façade there was still a cunning mind and a powerful wizard.

Once again, the piece of paper he had placed into the vanishing cabinet had returned blank. It still didn't work. And he could not afford to fail as horribly as he had done with the opal necklace. It had been a stupid, desperate plan from the beginning. If he had not been fortunate enough to have an alibi provided by his detention with McGonagall, he maybe would be sharing a cell in Azakban with his father by now.

Even if the package had reached its intended victim, Dumbledore would probably have perceived the curse on it before opening it. Or he would even have noticed the Imperius curse on the Bell girl. According to Snape, Dumbledore was an accomplished Legilimens, maybe even second only to the Dark Lord.

Even if he accepted Snape's help, he would be outmatched against the headmaster. How was he supposed to kill Dumbledore, when the Dark Lord had failed to do so for almost fifty years?

He had never been intended to succeed. It was a cruel punishment for his father's failure. And he had been too naïve to see it. And if he failed, and he would fail, there was no doubt about it, the Dark Lord would kill them all.

Cold dread was filling Draco. It was gripping him like a Devil's Snare that was slowly strangling him over the months. Spring was coming, and he was little closer to his goal than he had been in September.

Being a Death Eater was not like bullying first years. He had wished for power, instead he felt more powerless than ever. And once you joined, there was no way back. He had to continue trying, even if there was little hope.

He dreaded returning for Easter with empty hands. Aunt Bellatrix was getting impatient, and that she was family made her not less, but even more threatening. She had already killed her cousin, and was openly planning to kill her niece, and Draco knew, if it came down to choosing between her family and the Dark Lord, Bellatrix would always choose the Dark Lord.

Giving up was no option. As long as there was a chance to succeed, he was not allowed to give up, too high was the price for failure. Thus, he spent every free hour in the Room of Hidden Things. Sadly, the debris of centuries contained no instructions how to fix a vanishing cabinet, or the room would have supplied him with one.

Finally, a little progress. He placed an old tin soldier which had stopped moving long ago into the cabinet, and it did not vanish. He had come to the conclusion that the only way to fix it was to remove the broken old spell and recast it. The first part had worked at last.

The Easter holidays came, and Draco learnt more about being a Death Eater than he ever wanted. Aunt Bellatrix had come to the conclusion that he had mastered the Imperius curse sufficiently, and it was time to move on to the Cruciatus. The Imperius had come to him easily. He loved to rule about others. But no matter how hard he tried, he never got the Cruciatus to work, and he always felt dirty afterwards, and those stains could not be washed off. The cries of his victims haunted his sleep, and the dread of failure haunted his days. On the last day of the holidays he was called to the Dark Lord.

"Your time is running out. By the end of the year, I want the old fool dead. Do you understand? I have no use for a Death Eater who fails to prove his worth."

The voice made Draco shiver. "My Lord, I will do everything you request. I am your faithful servant."

"I do not doubt your loyalty; it's your ability I'm questioning. I don't need more than one rat in my ranks."

He returned to Hogwarts. He continued with the cabinet. He had found a book in the Manor's library which contained the instructions. The trouble was making the spell compatible with the other cabinet, the one at Borgin and Burkes.

At times, the pressure became too much. But he never let himself get caught crying. Only mudbloods cry, his father used to say. But Myrtle was a mudblood. She didn't mind him crying.

He dueled Potter, and lost. Where had Potter learnt this kind of dark magic even Aunt Bellatrix had not taught Draco? Was that what he did when he was alone with Dumbledore? Was Potter trained as a warrior? If Dumbledore was raising an army, the more urgent Draco's mission became.

The apple returned with a chunk bitten out of it, dark red lipstick visible at the rim of the bite. It was accompanied by a written note in Bellatrix' refined handwriting.

 _Greyback would have preferred steak._

He turned the parchment around, and wrote his reply.

 _He shall have it soon._

Disgusting, but that was the kind of reply Bellatrix expected from him.

It didn't matter. He had done it. And not only was the old muggle-lover about to die, he would also hand the castle over to the Dark Lord. The Devil's Snare withdrew as if it had been touched by fiendfyre, and Draco burst into a whooping celebration. The room presented him with a bottle of firewhisky, and he called Crabbe and Goyle to enter.

Thankfully the room could also offer them a sobering draught, as Rosmerta informed him that Dumbledore had left the school. Time to set up the trap.

"Come quickly. Dumbledore has left," he wrote on a new piece of parchment.

Three hours later, Dumbledore was dead. Not at Draco's hands, but at Snape's. Draco was now a wanted man, and it was Snape, not Draco, who would be honoured by the Dark Lord. Draco was nothing in the Dark Lord's eyes, nothing but a disposable minion.

It was as if the Devil's Snare had just relinquished its grip for a while to let him sink in even deeper.


End file.
